Brighter days
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My last post was SO gloomy.
It transpires I did need Keith's super chilled calmness in my life for just 10 minutes to snap me out of it. So I set to work tagging the lambs and administering Heptavac to everyone.
Tagging and vaccinating
Apparently all these 'first times' you just have to 'stop fannying around and get on with it'!
There's a wonderful calmness when we're all in the shed. We all just 'be'. It doesn't matter how shitty my day is, coming up to the sheep always makes everything OK.
The girls went off to new pasture, my ram and wether stayed behind with barely any grass. I need the grass to recover before putting the ewes back to where the shed is. Fingers crossed we have a mountain of growth in the next three weeks...debatable.
Proper Shepherd and I took the wethers off to a local abattoir last week and I collected their skins that day ready for salting and sending off for tanning. It's something I'd love to learn to do myself but I have too many tabs open in my head already, so that'll have to wait until later this year. Their colours are beautiful and I can't wait to get them back. The meat has been collected too and it was great to be able to drop some off to my neighbours.
Skins ready for tanning
Finally some down time. I met up with Trish who I bought my first 6 Shetlands from. She's great at laughing! I think we are probably laughing about some poor man!!
All the teeth!
Trish has some amazing Shetlands, so many different colours and markings. We spent an hour in the sunshine hanging out with some of her wethers. There are huge trees full to bursting with mistletoe. Gonna get me some of that for Christmas!
I spent an hour with Collie Boss training Ted which made me smile a lot! He talks to me and I think I'm taking it all in and then I have to do something and my mind races trying to reload everything I've heard. It's not even that hard I don't think, but I just get lost in total excitement that I am learning how to train the dog, being trained myself and barn and grass envy, again!
The skies have been on fire in the mornings. The sun rises alongside my cottage and waking up to the wonder of mother nature is heavenly. I'm am so incredibly lucky in so many aspects of my life and am truly thankful every day.
The pleasure of being able to go out in dry daylight to enjoy the flock is immeasurable. Even though the ewes are pregnant they still skip about like lunatics.
Three weeks today is L-Day. Shed prep to get done. The roof is leaking, so some climbing action is required this weekend to scrape off the last few years worth of debris to see if the holes can be filled. Clean out and disinfect shed, set up pens and wait...
The Shetland Sheep Society hosted a brilliant lambing webinar last night and although much of it was about what can go wrong, I didn't feel remotely worried. What a change from my last post. Its funny where your mind gets stuck sometimes. I think we all have moments of doubt but if you don't try you will never know and if you don't push your limits you won't get anywhere.
I have four Icelandic wethers to collect from Islay at some point. I hope they will live out their years here with me and provide beautiful fleeces which I can make in to living rugs later in the summer. Must sort my workshop out...tab no.47!
I know there will be moments I realise I am not yet proficient at this but to keep going at it and planning for the future is all I can do. I have so many things whizzing round my head at any one moment, sometimes I am my own worst enemy. Lets see where the next few months go and if I learn one or two more things then I'll be very happy.
For now though, a walk after work to take in these beautiful surroundings is all I need.
